Dr. John Beyer – Terrorists vs Crusaders in our High Schools

Were your teachers and admins scary? Maybe yes, maybe no?

Well, John was also a street cop, training officer and member of an elite SWAT team.

Better think twice before you act up in class. When he sends you to detention, he sends you to detention!

 
Dr. John Beyer’s Bio
John R. Beyer spent nearly ten years in law enforcement in Southern California as a street cop, a training officer and a member of the elite SWAT team. After leaving the force, he continued in public service entering the field of education. During his tenure, he served as classroom teacher, school administrator and district administrator. While in both worlds he earned a Doctorate in School Administration and a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology.

 
During all those years, he never gave up the passion for writing – both fiction and nonfiction. He has been published in numerous magazines, newspapers and the like for decades on a variety of topics. He resides in Southern California on a small ranch with his lovely spouse, Laureen, and four happy canines.

 
John and I talk about his published novels, HUNTED, SOFT TARGET and OPERATION SCORPION, his current work in progress, VLAD, THE LAST CRUSADER, and his recent sale to Black Opal Books, tentatively titled “Inquitos: The Past Can Kill” and due out in Nov 2018. We also discuss research, what makes stories real, character labor relations, dialogue, how his background in law enforcement adds to his novels, how writing can be like following a roadmap and when it’s time to get off the road, having a beer with your characters, how to contact him for therapy (he’s got that PhD in Psychology, remember?) and systems be they law, educational or writing.

 
Everyone, please stand up and give Dr. John (not the New Orleans musician) a big round of applause for taking part in our exciting adventure.

 
You can find links to Dr. John’s books on the right or at the bottom of this post (depending on your device). You’ll also find links to Dr. John’s sites underneath the video. And please comment both pro and pro. Okay, con, too, if something really peeves you.

 
The Interview

 
John Beyer’s Links
Read John on Amazon, his blog and on Weebly.
Follow him on Twitter.

 
An excerpt from John Beyer’s Vlad, the Last Crusader
October 31, 1476
North of Giurgiu

He gazed up the long sloping hill through the morning haze as it clung to the hillocks like honey on sweetbread and wondered if what he saw was a demon or the truth awaiting him all for the years he had struggled. He clasped his left knee, sorely injured from the man he had just decapitated a few yards down the grassy knoll and thought there was no way he could continue on with this march. Gathering all his reserve strength he pushed off with his broad sword, bloodied from the last few minutes of intense fighting, and clambered up the hill in search for what he was sure to be his destiny.

Three times he had taken the throne and this was to be the last. There would no longer be the guiding hand of heaven leading him, warning him of future doom but only his thoughts and determination to see him through this last triumph. He was alone. The two hundred personal guards meant nothing to an army of twenty thousand and all lives would be lost in this last attempt at glory but it was meant to be.

God had declared it.

The dazed, courageous prince squared his wide shoulders and sucked down a huge breath of morning air into his hungry lungs contemplating when the last blow would come but nothing happened. The enemy were all about him. The forest was alive with hatred. His death was imminent but yet they did not strike. Why would they not take advantage of a weakened foe? Had they lost their courage? This he doubted since he had battled the Infidels since early childhood. They were brave soldiers and not the type to run from blood but found glee in the killing of their enemies. Especially Christians like himself.

Had not he killed thousands of them in the past decades? Enough mutilated bodies rotted in his memory to fill the largest graveyards in all of Europe.

The questions of a lifetime bounced within his head but they did not need answering as he pushed on placing one foot in front of the other making way toward his final commitment. All his life was meant for this ultimate challenge. The challenge between good and evil. He prayed to the Holy Mother Church for sanctification and plunged on knowing that his guardsman were dying by the dozens below him on the steep hill that would someday bear his name. It meant nothing. Giving one’s life for the church meant everything. Dying had little importance if it would gain his people the smallest amount of freedom from the infidels charging across the land.

He was the last Crusader.

Had not he watched his younger brother, now his hated enemy, being violated at the hands of the very infidels that his sibling now worshipped? How many whippings had he endured because he would not go to his knees and engulf the throbbing members of his captors? He had been beaten twice almost to death because of spitting out the semen of the sultan who had, upon his own brothers urgings, thrust a penis in his mouth and ejaculated. Those enemies of his, of his church, were now upon him and to the death he would fight.

Death would come. As it came for all people but his death would only come with the grasp of his broadsword in his hand. He was Vlad Dracul and no one would ever deny him the fate that was destined to be his. A death with honor. The honor of dying for his beloved Church and Jesus Christ his Savior.

A little girl suddenly appeared at the top of the fog encrusted hill and Vlad took a few steps toward her. He had seen this vision in the past, before his young bride had thrown herself from the tower years earlier, and he instantly wondered if his tired mind was playing tricks with him. He pushed on knowing, questioning what was awaiting him at the top of the hill. Still the forest did not speak.

The knee was bleeding profusely as Vlad staggered up the steep rock encrusted hill dragging his bloody sword behind him. Death be to all those that come within striking distance, he thought, as a smile crept across the wide face.

“I will gladly sacrifice your life for mine,” he yelled into the still morning as the fog lay upon the ground. Vlad chuckled as he glanced toward his once shiny boots and saw the blood and human remains stuck to the leather. It had been a very hard fought battle.

“I am tired,” he mumbled as he climbed further up the hill waiting the final assault from his enemy hidden somewhere in the trees surrounding him. Why don’t they attack? I am worthless at this point. A forty-seven year old man that has spent all his life fighting should be an easy target for the might of the Infidels. A quick onslaught of heavily armed men could dispatch this old warrior with no problem. Even a warrior as fierce as Vlad Dracul.

“I have killed tens of thousands but now I do not believe I could kill one more,” Vlad muttered as he clambored up the steep incline wondering when his wounded leg would fail him.

The vision of the little girl broke upon him again through the fog. He gazed on the waif, not ten years old, staked to a stump of a tree barely fifteen yards before him. She had been stripped naked and her intestines hung grotesquely out of her tiny little stomach. Vlad felt an urge to vomit but swallowed hard and swung the heavy sword through the air.

“Is this some game you taunt me with? Come and end it now or I will start a war that none of you have ever experienced. I am Vlad Dracul and I, in the name of my heavenly father Jesus Christ demand that you present yourselves so I can render justice.”

The wind blew through the trees as Vlad made his way to the little bloodied girl nailed to the stump. Brushing her long blood matted curls out of the way Vlad bent forward slowly and kissed her forehead.

“My little one, I pray to our heavenly Father that I was not the cause of this.”

A shrill whistle from the forest had Vlad stand up quickly with hatred burning deep within his dark eyes. Suddenly his body was pierced by so many arrows he did not even know the number of those that had struck home. Slumping forward to the ground, he turned to stare at the young girls corpse, and tried to raise the heavy sword in their defense. It was a useless gesture as he collapsed and in one last show of strength, kissed the feet of the little girl that he had never known. “Sleep peacefully,” he murmured his last.

“The Tepes is gone,” came a whispering from the forest, not of one man, but of hundreds.

“The Impaler is dead.”